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What if HR Were the True Drivers of Change in Business?

What if HR Were the True Drivers of Change in Business?

by | 7 Jul 2025 | business strategy, Corporate Training, Digital Transformation, Human resources, Leadership

Recruitment, training, generational shifts, soft skills, digitalization… The challenges are many, but Human Resources today have the opportunity to reinvent their strategic role. In Switzerland, this transformation is already underway — and it often begins with constructive self-reflection. A better-equipped, more conscious HR function can become a decisive lever for organizational growth.

An HR Role in Full Redefinition

For a long time, HR was seen as a support service — ensuring administrative processes and compliance with labor laws. Today, that model is reaching its limits. Current challenges go far beyond compliance: it’s about building a culture, supporting transformation, and bringing a vision to life through talent.

In Switzerland, faced with a shortage of qualified labor, digital transformation, and evolving social expectations, HR must become strategic partners. This requires a new posture: more proactive, more influential, and more connected to human realities.

Recruiting in the Era of Invisible Skills

Recruiting today means navigating uncertainty. Career paths are no longer linear, experiences go beyond resumes, and behavioral competencies often outweigh technical skills.

But how do you detect emotional intelligence, adaptability, or resilience in an interview? How do you avoid confirmation bias? Many recruiters feel alone facing these issues.

A structured approach — based on observation, role plays, and the right questions — helps secure hires while respecting each candidate’s uniqueness. This expertise doesn’t come by chance: it’s developed through practical, directly applicable training.

Teaching Is No Longer Improvised

Technical knowledge alone is no longer enough. In a constantly changing world, effective knowledge transfer is a strategic challenge — to quickly onboard new employees, retain critical know-how, and support internal change.

Yet many experts are suddenly made trainers without pedagogical tools or guidance. The result: uninspiring training sessions where attention drops quickly and real impact is hard to measure.

Learning to become a trainer means acquiring concrete methods to structure a session, engage an audience, and assess learning outcomes. It also requires a mindset shift: more learner-focused, more impact-oriented. In a learning culture, this is a powerful lever for Swiss HR teams.

Generations Y and Z: Challenge or Opportunity?

Intergenerational dialogue can be tricky in the workplace. Younger employees expect flexibility, feedback, autonomy, and purpose. Older colleagues value stability, expertise, and long-term loyalty. Each often thinks the other “doesn’t understand the world of work.”

Rather than oppose these views, we can build an inclusive culture that values complementarities. But this requires deep insight into generational behaviors, needs, and motivational drivers.

Targeted training can help decode these differences, adapt management styles, and foster trust. After all, every generation seeks recognition and usefulness — just in different ways.

Can Digital Tools Support the Human?

HR automation is progressing rapidly: AI-powered sourcing, digital onboarding, performance platforms, LMS for training… These tools are not neutral. Poorly used, they dehumanize; properly integrated, they free time for what really matters.

Yet many HR professionals are still poorly supported in adopting these solutions — or they experience them top-down, through a technocratic lens.

Learning about HR digitalization doesn’t mean becoming a technician. It means understanding the stakes behind the tools, choosing the right ones, and integrating them into a people-centered strategic vision. In Switzerland, where management culture still values human connection, this hybridization is crucial.

Equipping HR Is Equipping the Business

HR training is not an end in itself — it’s a lever for transformation. It gives professionals the tools to navigate uncertainty, better understand the people they support, and contribute actively to business strategy.

In Switzerland, companies that invest in upskilling their HR teams also invest in the sustainability of their culture, the quality of their recruitment, and the smoothness of their internal transitions.

Customer Retention, Team Development — The Hidden Challenge for HR

Customer Retention, Team Development — The Hidden Challenge for HR

by | 23 Jun 2025 | business strategy, customer experience, Human resources, Training & Development

Why do so many companies struggle to build genuine customer loyalty, even with solid products and experienced salespeople?
Because they overlook a critical factor: the quality of human interaction at every level of the organisation. Client relationships are not just about calls and meetings — they’re rooted in company culture, the way people are trained, how skills are managed, and the role HR plays as a strategic driver.

Why do customers leave?

This is the question that haunts leadership teams. They revise sales scripts, switch CRM systems, redesign offerings. Yet despite all the effort, customers still churn. In a world ruled by immediacy, loyalty has become a kind of holy grail — and a source of constant anxiety.

But loyalty doesn’t hinge solely on the product or the salesperson. It’s built through small gestures, thoughtful experiences, consistency. And that requires far more than just a sales department. It involves the entire organisation.

So the real question becomes: Is your company truly listening to its clients — or is it hoping that one team will do that work alone?

Customer relationships are not just the sales team’s job

In Swiss companies — especially SMEs and decentralised structures — sales teams are often under pressure: to acquire, convince, close. But selling today is no longer a one-off transaction. It’s a continuous process where every touchpoint matters.

A field technician, a back-office assistant replying to an invoice request, a trainer delivering a service — each one, in their own way, shapes the customer experience. And, ultimately, customer loyalty.

Customer relationship training should not be reserved for sales roles. It’s a cross-functional issue. One that HR can and must lead.

Human skills first

Sales skills in the 21st century are no longer just about persuasion. They’re grounded in human abilities: empathy, listening, assertiveness, relationship-building, anticipating needs.

These capabilities are often found in unexpected profiles — project managers, quality leads, customer support reps, internal consultants. But they must be identified, valued, and developed. That calls for serious investment in skills mapping, learning strategies, and leadership culture.

Internal engagement drives external loyalty

One often overlooked truth: customer loyalty starts with employee loyalty. A company that cannot retain and engage its own people is unlikely to build lasting relationships with its clients. High turnover, psychological fatigue, and lack of recognition all erode the customer experience.

On the other hand, companies that focus on collective intelligence, continuous learning, and employee empowerment naturally deliver better client interactions — not by force, but through alignment. Through consistency.

Towards a relationship-driven culture

The best training programmes in customer acquisition and retention don’t just teach how to sell. They help embed a relationship-driven culture across the organisation. One that crosses silos, encourages listening, and turns client feedback into a driver of innovation.

For HR, this means moving beyond targeted workshops to leading genuine transformation: mapping relationship skills, redesigning learning journeys, developing hybrid roles, and building bridges across departments.

HR at a strategic crossroads

The question is no longer whether HR should support commercial performance. The real question is: can we still separate the two?
In a service economy, where trust is scarce and relationships define value, customer acquisition and retention are deeply human challenges. And therefore, fundamentally, HR responsibilities.

The most successful companies of tomorrow won’t be the ones that simply sell better — but the ones that train their teams to embody the company’s promise, every day.